Tech prof writes about beach music

Tech prof writes about beach music

RUSTON, La. (AP) - A professor at Louisiana Tech University has published a follow-up book in a series the looks at beach music in the Carolinas.

"Carolina Beach Music from the 60s to the 80s: The New Wave" is written by Rick Simmons, director of the university's honors program.

Published by the History Press, the book picks up where Simmons' last book, "Carolina Beach Music: The Classic Years," left off, covering more classic beach music as well as songs that started a new wave of beach music in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

"Beach music is a mixture of mainly rhythm and blues, soul, Motown, even some doo-wop and '60s frat rock," Simmons said. "There are even some Louisiana musicians who are important to the genre," he said, citing Benny Spellman, Ernie K-Doe, Jewel and the Rubies, Brenton Wood and others.

"In the Carolinas, Georgia and Virginia, this type of music started to become popular in the 1960s and eventually became known as Carolina beach music to differentiate it from California beach/surf music. It still has a large following today."

Simmons' book looks at 80 recordings made from 1966 through 1982 and includes interviews with the recording artists.